Ode to Joke van der Keuken | You had an underground trust in me that was very great

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Amsterdam, 2009

Dear, dear Joke, dearest Mom,

By now you have been dead for almost 12 years. You were 61 and we, me and Else, your daughters were 41. Strange to think that if you had lived you would have been only 73 now. As I get older myself, 73 seems so ordinary it still doesn't really seem old either. Gee, how young you actually died!

When you were diagnosed with cancer I was 39. I remember with terror the thought shot through me of whether I could do without my mother if you died of it. But I realized then, perhaps for the first time, that I was now a grown woman and would be able to go on on my own.

It may sound strange that I wondered that when I was already so old. But you were such a natural part of my existence, I felt so intimately connected to you, there were so many issues I could discuss with you and where I used you as a touchstone for my own thoughts and development, that I couldn't imagine that, and had never thought about the fact that you might not be around at some point.

And strangely enough, you haven't really been gone in the 12 past years of being physically absent either. I still think about you a lot. I have conversations, present problems to you and wonder how you would view my current life. Your death has caused me to look at you differently. The literal distance between you and me now has made me see you more clearly. I have been thinking a lot about you and your life and over the years have become more and more aware of the enormous job you have done. My admiration for you has only increased. Your death allowed me to look at you with a kind of helicopter view which eliminated all kinds of noise that occurs in the daily dealings between mother and daughter(s). I now see in the fullness of who you are and of what you have accomplished. I would have loved to still talk with you about your life. Real answers to certain questions I was never able to get from you again. Not about your life and yourself and not about the issues I ran into in my own life. So I still miss you terribly on a regular basis. 

I longed for you so much when your only grandchild, Laura was going through puberty and I sometimes wondered desperately how to deal with certain aspects of it. I wanted to know how on earth you did it on your own with TWO daughters going through puberty at the same time because we are twins. I wanted your advice as an expert by experience in raising two daughters but also your professional advice from your profession as a psychotherapist. You had a keen eye, a good understanding of human actions and thinking and you had the warmth and love needed to ensure the intimacy that is important to discuss these kinds of issues with your own mother. I have felt so alone at times with all the unanswered questions about parenting. I would have liked so much to take refuge with you at times. And in retrospect, Laura wasn't even such a difficult adolescent. It was the unfamiliarity of it and having to do it on my own that made it difficult.

Fortunately, you lived long enough to experience confidence in my future. As an independent woman and as a mother of Laura.  I am so glad for that. You saw that, after the very turbulent period I had been in because of the divorce from Laura's father, Paul, and the gigantic consequences that had on my future, I was able to cope and take on the new life with verve. I had to move involuntarily, provide for my own income and guide then 6-year-old Laura through this terrible period as best I could. You saw that I could do it. You still made sure that I could restore my relationship with Paul. How I would have loved to show you what a new, precious union I have now formed with him. We cherish our history, love each other for the persons we are and have mutual admiration and respect for each other's development. We are family and friends. For the rest of our lives.

Mom, you don't half know how grateful I am to you for initiating that, just before your death. At that moment, when all my senses were functioning at the height of their powers and were open, you spoke sternly to me. I was furious with Paul, preferring never to see him again, wishing him more or less dead. You would die a few days later with active euthanasia and I didn't know what to do. Practically, too, I didn't know what to do. Laura, now 9 years old, in my opinion, could not be present at your death. How was I supposed to assist her when I myself barely knew how to endure your dying process?

I raged against you. The next conversation on Wednesday, 2 days before your death:

Me: 'Mom, how is that going to work, you are going to die Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. but where am I going to leave Laura! I want/need to be at your death but the child has to be accommodated. And I can't ask Paul because he won't do that anyway'.

You: 'Bar, you must stop your stubborn behaviour. Call Paul now, he certainly does. Now stop fighting for what he doesn't have to offer and go take what he does have to offer'.

And that's how Paul and I came together again.....Mom, it's forever etched in my memory!

There is 1 thing that bothered me for a long time after your death.

You were so sick for 2 years that Else and I, with the help of all kinds of friends of yours set up a huge 'informal care' project around you. But it was the same period that Paul and I broke up, that I had to move out of the house and get a new one built, that I had to make a living on my own with my job, and that I had to help Laura through this period on my own as best I could. Sometimes it flew at me, I panicked. How on earth was I supposed to combine it all? And at one point I knew you weren't going to make it. But you just kept fighting. And you suffered so terribly. It wasn't to be seen. And it was unbearable. There was a moment when I hoped you would finally decide that enough was enough and ask for euthanasia. In fact, I asked you once if it wasn't enough?

Right after that you made the decision. And afterwards I felt responsible for that. I could hardly handle it myself anymore and talked you to death as I felt.

Rationally, I know it's not the truth. You were in your own process and suffering terribly. The pain could not be fought. That's why you gave up. Yet.....

By the way, your death has been a confirmation for me that euthanasia can be given totally freely. People, you not least of all, have such a gigantic survival instinct that they only want to die when there really is no way out. Oh, how frightening, by the way, that you go so far before you want to die. I have become afraid of death. And at the same time, I hope one day I can face my end with as much dignity as you did! 

I am getting older and wiser. You have been dead for 12 years. The combination of both events makes me more distant and surveyable. Mothers and daughters are so on top of each other that there is little room for contemplation and reflection. We were a mini-family with only women. You and your two daughters, me and Else. We developed patterns with each other that proved inescapable even in old age. It was almost impossible to make changes in the relationships between family members. We each had our roles. You were a hard-working, studying young woman who raised your daughters with artistry and full of love and warmth. You needed our help with that. Else was best suited for that. Already at a young age she had a great sense of responsibility and took on the tasks assigned to her by you in the household without grumbling. You put her to work. I was a recalcitrant child and always tried to evade. So Else had another task in that, namely to direct me and make sure I carried out my duties. In retrospect, that was not pretty. It was not good that you “used” her like that. Else was heavily burdened and had little room to be a child and an adolescent. I didn't see that at the time. In my eyes she was taken seriously and was also seen as the most intelligent and in my adolescence I was outraged because in my opinion I was not considered so important. Only in retrospect did I understand that I was able to slip through everything and had much more leeway than Else. Else has always lived with the feeling that she had to perform something to be entitled to love. It shaped her. You told Else just before you died that it was wrong of you and that you regretted it. Else struggled with that background in her life, but eventually found a very good shape for it. She is still tour manager of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and she does it so well! Actually, she has sublimated her caring role in our family to 120 orchestra members to be helped around the world. She does it with verve!

I've been able to get better acquainted with you in recent years. I have become more understanding of you. I could discuss things with you now that I wasn't ready to at the time. Partly because they were taboo, but also because I simply didn't have an eye for them. I would like to talk to you now about how you have fared in your life and what a tremendous admiration I have for the way you have lived and raised us.

You accidentally became pregnant with me and Else in 1955, at 19, when you were just in college. You told us, when we were much older, that you wanted an abortion. Your father did not agree at all, and he demanded that Anton, whom you had met in college, marry you. And so it happened. Your father did see that hand and foot service was needed. He bought you a houseboat and paid for Anton's medical studies. He was of the old school and apparently felt that he was investing in you by investing in your brand-new husband. What a miscalculation!  Anton was cutting corners, flirting with all kinds of cute girls and not looking after you with your TWO babies.

He had only just graduated or he promptly abandoned us, leaving us penniless. He cared about nothing else about us either. Not about you, but painfully not about Else and me either. And yes, that also shaped us. It is bad for children when their father is really not interested in his children. Anton started a general practice in The Hague and soon a new wife had joined it. You, of course, had had to drop your studies and so suddenly found yourself alone at 26 with your two 6-year-old daughters. You had no education and no money. You received a tip as alimony and had to work all kinds of jobs to provide for your family. Part-time jobs didn't exist in those days either. You always took full jobs as a secretary etc. and then went home at 4 p.m. to take care of us, your children. Each time you were fired because of that and then a new job followed. Welfare didn't exist in those days. Divorce was not common either. Working mothers were not at all common.

I have always blamed your father for not realizing then that he had bet on the wrong horse, namely Anton and the marriage, and that he should have made up for it now by really investing in you.

But no so. You had to make a living on your own and find a turn in your life that would be satisfying for you. Fortunately, we lived in Amsterdam and there were many changes on the way in the early 1960s. You had a club of friends around you who had also all been “kicked out with young” and had been left out in the cold just as much. In short, there was like-mindedness around you. You were all in the same boat and had to make something of it. That group of women around you gave you a lot of support.

You eventually found part-time jobs in the field you knew you wanted to pursue. You chose mental health, and then when we were old enough for you, you started studying alongside it. We were 12, and that was also the period when Else in particular was employed to help run the household. So far so good. 

You were ironclad, you had great ambition, you were driven and you fought through it. And as a mini-family we also had a great time, I think. Else didn't like it as much, she wanted a “normal” family. And rightly so. She was also the most lacking. She is so true and sincere and and so incredibly sweet. That has been thundered over. By you and by numerous others in her life. The family we had fit her personality the least. She had a much greater vulnerability than me or you.  The insecurities we brought into our lives were the most difficult for her.

We also felt the heaviness of your existence as young children. You did your best, but could not hide the fact that you were sometimes very burdened and gloomy. That, too, shaped me and Else. We could not freely “be children. It wasn't always nice at the time, but in hindsight I don't know if that is such a bad thing. I also didn't like being a child at all. We were given the tools to learn to function well and it was a kind of reality that gave us two feet on the ground.

Later Else and I realized much more what that life actually meant to you: You didn't have a “childhood” because you got pregnant immediately about the 1st time you had sex. Therefore, you were unable to properly develop your sexuality when you were young. Else and I heard after your death that Anton got you pregnant again twice more. (You were an extremely fertile woman I think!) Then he personally, as a doctor in training, performed the abortions on you. The same man who has sex with you (and to my knowledge with a few others) also does the abortions. What must that do to you? How can you live with that? How can you properly experience and learn about your own sexuality that way? How can the man who does that deal with sexuality? These are questions I would have liked to ask you now. Because once you were on your own with your two children, whose upbringing was totally on you, you were not exactly in the most attractive position to build a beautiful love life. (That didn't exactly work out either) Especially for men of that generation you were far too independent. They couldn't handle that at all. The few men I know who still played a role in your life had damn little to offer you, in my opinion. They weren't concerned with that either. They were interested in what you had to offer them.  Only late in your life did you meet a man who set you on fire sexually. Humanly speaking, a disaster figure for you, but in my opinion, as far as sex was concerned, he was great for you. At the time, I couldn't see the fun in that at all. Now I would love to talk to you about it.

Mom, you actually had so much bad luck.

But the word “bad luck” or “victim” were not in your vocabulary. You were furious with Anton at times, though. When the tip alimony was not transferred either. You could panic because we lived on the edge when it came to money.

When I had a child of my own, I immediately understood much better the achievement you had made. When Paul and I separated, I understood much better why the word “victim” or “bad luck” are not an issue. And certainly not with me. During Laura's early years, I was able to quietly build my professional practice because Paul took responsibility primarily for finances. And when I had to stand on my own two feet, I turned out to be far enough along to be able to earn my own money.

My child came when I was 32 and before then I had had ample opportunity to experiment with all aspects of lust and love life. I had no loss of youth like you.

I was balanced when my divorce came. Both personally and professionally. I could build on my achievements of the years before. I could cope. I recognized my strength and knew a way to overcome my fears. You had to start from scratch when you already had 2 children at age 20.

I was always annoyed by certain things about you: your buying mania (once you had money) and your obsessive eating habits. Your territorial drift and your strong character.

Now I see much better that it was all a kind of compensation for a bad start in your younger years. You never had the space to develop yourself uninhibitedly. You accomplished yourself, but the road to it was unapproachable, lonely and hard and from the age of 20 so full of responsibilities that we cannot even imagine.

Jeez Mom, now when I put it all back together again it amazes me once again that you have done so well. How come?

It was in your personality. An iron will, enormous perseverance, drive and ambition. An optimistic, positive attitude towards life. A fighter. Inner strength.

You looked problems straight in the face and you tackled them. You didn't point fingers at others. You refused to be a victim and you made sure to have fun as often as you could. You had fun developing your skills, you often enjoyed us, you passionately loved life and your friendships. You knew how to make beautiful what was ugly.

Of course, sometimes you also got bogged down in details, lost yourself in your own insecurities and were dissatisfied with yourself and your existence. But those now seem like mere wrinkles.

You taught me and Else what loving and giving warmth means. You showed us how far you can get with that. You taught us to build our own existence. You showed us what hard work is and what it brings.  You were the example of combining working and raising children. How glad I am that I got that from you! You gave us a zest for life. Meaningfulness. Searching for the core and essence of existence. You taught us to dare to doubt.

Listen Mom, Else and I are, just as you were, afflicted with a chronic sense of uncertainty. Ineradicable and disastrous. But we have both been given the tools to deal with it. We live with it and have found a form by which that rotten trait does not dominate in both of us.

There is one more thing I think is pretty essential to tell you. Unfortunately, I never did when you were alive: As I wrote earlier, I always felt I wasn't taken completely seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth. You had an underground trust in me that was very great.

You made sure that I went to the Montessori Lyceum while my elementary school teacher, who didn't love me at all (oh, how I tried my best to win his love) had much less attractive plans for me.

You paid for my studies when I went to the Rietveld at 17.

I left when I was 20 because I was still an unguided projectile and completely unable to focus. At 22 I wanted to return to the Rietveld. I knocked on your door and you spontaneously started paying for my studies again. Then I wanted to go to America for a year to do an MFA program for my studies. You gladly paid for that too.

You watched me struggle with my love life. You've seen me struggle with starting my professional practice. I'm sure you must have fretted a thousand times over whether I would make it. And always I could turn to you. Always you helped me. Both financially and morally. You helped me through depression, you helped me gain courage, you helped me think and act sensibly. In short, you had confidence.

I am extremely happy that you were able to witness that I lived up to your trust. That I raised my child well, that I could earn my own money with the profession I had always aspired to, visual artist. Even better, that I got better and better at my craft, that I dared to do business on a modest scale and that I made good choices in many areas of my existence.

I would like to show you what has come of it all and show you the developments in my work. I would like to show you how Laura is doing now as an almost 21-year-old daughter in the 1st year of film school. I wish Laura could talk to you about her souls. Anyway, I still would have liked everything.

Most of all, I want you to know that you can be proud of me and, by the way, very proud of Else.

And we are very proud of you!

Bye dear little mother, I wish I could hold you in my arms for a while,

Lots of love,

Bar 

Ps. Do you know that your death also made me aware of my motto in my life and in my work?

Shortly after your death, still in a sort of stupor, I was driving by car behind Central Station. There was such a beautiful sunset going on that I was totally gripped by the spiritual and comforting effect of beauty.

I suddenly felt that you were there in that vast space and that you saw us. That you saw me. I was safe. You were not gone. You lived on in us and I “felt” you.

It was such an experience, where happiness and sadness exist right next to each other.

Later, I captured it in words that I experienced-and propagate as a starting point in my work and in my attitude to life: 'We are so tiny in this universe, but so rich that we are allowed to participate for a moment!' Seize your opportunity, take advantage of it!